


Debut

by Padacore



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action, F/F, Genre adaptation, M/M, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 06:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18337643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padacore/pseuds/Padacore
Summary: A genre adaptation of 'Debut' by Kristin Hunter that I did for class.Judy is getting ready for the Debutante's ball when her mother leaves her to herself. She hears grown men hitting on a girl her age.





	Debut

'Hold still,' Mrs Simmons commanded through the pins that stuck from her mouth. She gave another tug at the dress's sash, commanding Judy to walk to the other side of the room and turn around.

This was Judy's first long dress. She usually wore more practical clothes that let her work without getting stuck in the workshop. Or so she could move more effectively while doing acrobatics.

The dress was pretty, but Judy didn't care. Her mother had worked night and day for weeks just to get the fabric. Then she seemed to find more time than that to sew it together. Judy cared about the dress, not because it was pretty, but because her mother had worked so hard for it. 

Judy's father had quite the distaste toward the dress, seeing it as mere fabric, like her acrobatics leotard. His wife cared about it, so he had a small attachment. He really didn't care about 'breaking into society,' as his wife put it. All of that was just for the brats of the brass. He'd met some of the boys who'd be attending the Debutante's ball, and they left a bitter taste in his mouth. Treating him like 'the help'. He was glad that Judy was going with Ernest Li from down the road. 

Judy'd been through what seemed millions of fittings for this dress, all for this night.

'Slowly,' Mrs Simmons hissed through the pins, scared for her hard work. Judy didn't really think she was worthy of attending the ball. She wasn't beautiful, nor elegant, nor graceful in her mind. She didn't see a man falling for her, nor really liking her. She was strong and large, unlike Rose Griffin - the most beautiful girl she'd ever seen. She thought for someone to love her she needed to be slim, and prim, and all of these other things of which she was few. Rose had many suitors near everyday, while Judy had none. Under the forceful eye of her mother, she was forced to ask Ernest.

'Ma, please!' Judy exclaimed with a fed-up start. She'd given in to her impatience again - that was what she hated the most about herself. 

'Judy, Dear. Mother, not 'Ma'. You're about to debut after all. You had best not use such language at the ball,' she said, almost folding to speaking like that. She'd been taking speech correction classes, but they didn't stick. 

'These are the merest semantics, Mother Dearest,' Judy half-joked.

'Well I need this fixed, so go anyway,' Mrs Simmons sighed, pulling her pins from her mouth and laying them down. She made Judy strip down to her underwear and stole away with the dress.

Judy wandered up the stairs to her room, thinking of her night to come, and her shivering. Her mother would be upset if she pulled something over her hair that she'd already spent hours on, so she endured the cold breeze brought in her window that was cracked by the drunkards who hung around like a bad smell. She had no view from her window - just the wall across the way. That was still good for her, she'd spent hours staring at it when she was bored - the graining showing her all sorts of things. She'd seen men and women, and things for her father to build with her. This day, she saw Rose Griffin standing magnificently in a ballgown that reached the ground, and though she knew it impossible, it seemed like there were claps coming from the wall.

As she sat there admiring the Rose on the wall, she heard an all-too-familiar call. It was like the mating call of an animal that sounded often. 

'Did it hurt?' a drunk man slurred from the alleyway. It was something of a ritual for these men. They didn't even finish all of the lines themselves.

'Did what hurt?' asked the voice of Lucy Mae, another person whom she thought more worthy than herself. Though she had no mansion, not even much of a house. They were similar, but not. Judy's parents were around for one. They were both larger girls, yet Judy still thought of Lucy as more 'beautiful,' as she called it. She thought the same thing of near everyone she knew, apart from herself. She always put herself down, thinking poorly of herself.

'When you fell from heaven,' another of the men finished.

'I did no such thing,' Lucy said in in a joking manner. She knew this play, obviously.

'Really? I must've mistaken you for an angel,' another of the men continued. These were full-grown men by the sounds of it. But Lucy was only fifteen years old. Judy knew this was wrong. She knew how Lucy must have been feeling. She knew how all of the others who they'd done this to must have felt now. She wasn't afraid for herself, though. But Lucy.

'Your eyes are so enchanting...,' the first man whispered.

SLAM

Something had hit the wall. Judy was ready. She had stood up of no volition. Her years of acrobatics flung her over her desk and out the window. She landed with a twinge of pain before standing up ready to fight. She used her memories of martial arts classes and took near-perfect stance as she let a kick fly into the head of the man who'd cornered Lucy.

SMACK

He fell to the ground and his friends moved away from Lucy. 

'A real angel, eh? Did that hurt?" one of the men asked, swinging his fist right by Judy's face. It hit a wall behind her.

CRACK

His hand made a horrible sound as he followed through with the punch. Judy would've been seriously hurt. the other man took a crack at it, missing as Judy dodged. Lucy got right up behind the man who had taken the first swing and grabbed a tight hold of his hand, crushing it beyond what seemed repair. He screamed. 

'You gonna keep hittin' on young girls?' she growled at him. He screamed his answer before Lucy barked in his ear, turning to the other two, 'How 'bout you two?'

'No! Of course not!' they whined, scampering down the alley. She let the man go and he followed.

'So you jumped a whole storey and still gave 'em a whoppin'! That's amazing!' Lucy exclaimed, approaching the barely-clad girl, reaching for a high-five. 

'Was it? Thanks- no. Thank you,' Judy corrected herself to appear ladylike. Despite this attempt, she obliged the high-five. 

'You're goin' to that ball, ain't ya?' Lucy asked, proceeding to curtsy jokingly. 

'Yes. And you?'

'Well I never planned on it, but...,' she began, looking Judy over, 'My brothers're forcin' me, 'You have to go, Lucy. You'll never make it otherwise,'' she finished, mocking her brothers.

'They sound like Ma,' Judy joked.

'Really? Then she won't be happy 'bout this,' Lucy said, putting her hand on Judy's head. 

'What?'

'It's all messy,' Lucy said, 'I'll help you. My brothers insisted on buyin' me hair stuff instead of their own food. Crazy if you ask me.'

'Would you?'

'Yeah. S'pose ya won't get in without bein' seen. Let's go now,' Lucy said, waving Judy towardher as she walked away. They walked through alleys, avoiding open spaces, arriving at the crumbling mass of stone and brick that was Lucy's house. Her brothers sat out the front begging for money. They talked with Judy for what seemed ages as she sat at Lucy's shabby, old vanity and Lucy did her hair. Lucy had leant Judy some clothes to wear so that she wasn't naked.

When Lucy had finished with Judy's hair, she walked Judy back to her place, where they did Lucy's hair. The room was filled with a gleeful atmosphere, and when Mrs Simmons came in, she felt awkward breaking it, but she had to fit Judy's dress. Afterward, Lucy and Judy held each other's hands tightly.

At the ball they were together, and the boy down the road had found someone else - the boy from up the hill - to dance with. And Judy had found hers to dance with. The girl from down the streets in the crumbly old home. And though they drew many a scathing eye, they cared not for they were happy.

And as the final bell tolled on that night, in a secluded place overlooking the bay, they shared a kiss that made their hearts burn bright as suns.


End file.
